GRANTS PASS, OR -- "Youíre under
arrest," a man with a gun and a badge calmly tells you. You protest,
"Iím innocent," but the police read you your rights and ignore your
protests. You are handcuffed and taken to jail. If the District Attorney
in the name of the state thinks itís a winnable charge, he will give
your case to the grand jury expecting an indictment.

The old saying goes, "A DA can
get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich." Once the DA has the indictment
from the grand jury, he has a license to prosecute. If youíre short
of cash and donít have any friends, you will sit in jail waiting for
your speedy trial, which could be months. You most likely will be
offered a plea bargain at some point. Your chances of escaping unscathed
mentally, emotionally, and financially, although you believe yourself
innocent, are generally about 2-percent from a jury of your peers
in Josephine County. This number varies around the country. At this
point the reader may be wondering if the jury system in the United
States really works, and if not why not. The fact is it works some
of the time, but not enough to coincide with the founding fathersí
vision of the jury system.

Dr. Stanley Milgramís Experiment

To begin our understanding why
the jury system often malfunctions, we must take a journey back in
time of just over 40-years. During the years of 1961 and 1962 Doctor
Stanley Milgram, a brilliant psychologist with Yale University, created
some revealing experiments exposing the dark side of human beings.
Dr. Milgram wanted to obtain an insight as to why the Nazi war criminals
who committed atrocities against humanity willingly participated in
the deaths of millions of people. Often their excuse was, " I was
just following orders and doing my job, sir." Were these men and women
abjectly evil, following orders, or was there another reason? Dr.
Milgram's experiments gave some insightful answers that help show
why Hitler and other tyrants thoughtout recorded history have often
had popular support of the population. The willingness of ordinary
people to commit cruel acts against their fellow man exists today
in all nations as it has in the past. Under the right conditions the
Dr. Jekylls of today can easily become the cruel and repulsive Mr.
Hydes of tomorrow. The following paragraphs explain how Dr. Milgram
conducted his experiment.

Itís Shocking

A newspaper ad was run soliciting
those willing to participate in a paid learning experiment. One person
was selected to be a teacher and the other the learner. The learner
was strapped into a chair to prevent his moving around when an electric
shock jolted him. Then an electrode was attached to the learnerís
wrist. The learner was given a list of paired words. Then he was required
to repeat back the missing word of the pair from memory. The teacher
used an impressive electrical device with lots of switches and warning
labels. The device delivered shocks starting at 15 volts and continued
in 15-volt increments up to 450 volts. Each time the learner missed
a word, he received an electric shock. The scientist in the white
gown encouraged the teacher to administer shocks at the higher levels
for missed words when the teacher was reluctant to do so, and his
presence was a stabilizing influence on the teacher. When the scientist
wasnít in the room, the teacherís compliance with administering the
shocks decreased.

At 75, 90, and a 105 volts the
learner would groan with pain. At 120 volts the learner complained
that the pain of the shocks was unbearable. When the teacher showed
any reservation about administering the higher voltages for wrong
answers, the scientist would explain that the shocks are not lethal
and the learner will suffer no permanent damage from the shocks. As
the teacher administers the voltage increases, the cries from the
other room grow louder until at 330 volts there is silence. The scientist
tells the teacher to interpret the silence as a wrong answer and continue.
This goes on until the questions are completed or the machine shows
the teacher has administered the maximum 450 volts shock to the learner.
The experiment is now completed.

Unknown to the teacher, he was
the subject of the experiment, not the learner. The learner received
no shock but was coached to act the part of being shocked. The moans
and cries of pain were fake. The electrical apparatus was bogus, but
the teacher didnít know that. The teacher believed the shock generator
was real, the learner was actually being shocked, and the cries of
pain from the other room were real.

Pay No Attention to the Screams,
Apply the Voltage

Dr. Stanley Milgramís experiment
reached into the nebulous Twilight Zone of the human psyche. Why would
an ordinary person be willing to cause what he believed to be pain
and suffering to another human being? The moans, groans, yelling,
and silence could leave no doubt in the teacherís mind that the learner
was apparently in great pain. Interestingly, about 65 percent of those
who participated in the experiment went all the way by administering
what they believed to be a dangerous 450-volt shock. The scientist
in the white gown was an integral part of this experiment who encouraged
and manipulated the teacher to continue when he expressed reservations
about doing so. Some teachers under great emotional stress showed
nervous reactions in various ways such as nervous laughing and apprehension.
No matter, most of the teachers did continue with the experiment.

Americans Want to Please Authority

Milgram sums up the experiment
in this paragraph. "The legal and philosophic aspect of obedience
are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people
behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale
University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict
on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental
scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjectsí strongest
moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjectsí
ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often
than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths
on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the
study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation." From, "The
Perils of Obedience" (Milgram 1974)

Judges, Juries, and a Fair Trial

In our society the jury in our
community has tremendous power over an individual. It can recommend
the death sentence, find a man guilty of a crime, or find a man not
guilty. The jury makes the finding and the judge does the sentencing.
What makes a jury tick? Can it be manipulated? Can the jury be stacked
to a certain viewpoint? What about juries that sentence innocent men
to death before DNA comes along and voids the death sentence? The
jurors made the decision to find the man guilty. Did they really want
to find the man guilty, or were they under courtroom restraints put
in place by a judge?

By using Milgramís experiment and
some questions, perhaps some conclusions can be reached in this matter.
If the jurors were to want to please an authority figure whom would
it be? The answer appears to be an easy one. It would be the judge,
the man in the symbolic black robe who sits on a raised platform to
allow him to look down on the jury, prosecutor, defendant, and spectators.
This is a power and authority position and the purpose is to intimidate.
How much influence do you think the judge would have if he sat down
in a pit, with the jury and defendant above him and looking down on
him?

The judge is the scientist authority
figure in Milgramís experiment. The judge is like the shepherd that
nurtures the flock of sheep. The sheep want to please and look to
the shepherd for guidance. The jurors come and go at the judgeís bidding.
The judge tells the juries when they can have a break, have lunch,
and can even sequester a jury for as long as it takes to come up with
a verdict. When the judge wants to discuss an issue with the prosecutor
or defense attorney, he will often dismiss the jurors. They get up
and file out of the courtroom like so many sheep.

Most important, the judge is able
to gain control of juriesí personal opinions with the following two
statements: "Will you bring in a guilty verdict even though you disagree
with the law?" The law in question may be a bad one. But, it
is still being enforced. A juror who admits to disagreeing with the
law will no longer sit on the jury. The jurors are also under oath
to bring in a guilty verdict if the prosecutor proves his case beyond
a reasonable doubt, even if they are dealing with a bad law.

The juror can no longer vote his
conscience, and the jury system fails to meet the founding fathersí
expectations. We now have the so-called "12 pancake (stacked) jury"
who are psychologically under the spell of an authority figure (judge)
whom the jurors subconsciously wish to please.

Whatís a Guy to Do

So what can the man who considers
himself an innocent victim do to protect himself? If he has access
to money, there is a lot he can do. The old idiom 'money buys justice'
is fact. If the defendant doesnít have money to hire a good attorney,
investigator, and expert witnesses as needed, he should consider the
plea bargain usually offered. If he goes before a typical teacher
pancake jury in Josephine County, Oregon, and the rest of the nation,
the pancakes most likely will figuratively hang the learner defendant.
That is generally the destiny of those charged. In April 2003, the
prisons in the United States held over 2.1 million prisoners, which
surpasses the number in Russian prisons. American juries have helped
make the USA the number one prison country. A dubious title to hold.

Why Did One Go to Prison and
the Other Go Home?

Josephine County, Oregon's District
Attorney Clay Johnson, in a cruel prosecution attempted to squeeze
out six years of Steve Andrews life. Andrews, a man in his sixties,
(story)
was accused of child abuse in Josephine County, went before a jury
of 12, and won. How did he do it? T.J. Burris, a man in his sixties,
(story)
spent over $100,000 trying to stay out of prison for alleged child
abuse in Josephine County. Many claim
Burris never got a fair trial when Judge J. Loyd OíNeal presided over
the case. Even local attorneys and this writer agree on the issue.
The first trial resulted in a hung jury, the second pancake jury found
him guilty, and heís been in prison for 5 of an 8-year sentence. The
same type of charge was used on Andrews, but Andrews got to go home.
Andrews went and hired a good investigative reporter.

The investigatorís testimony, along
with that of an excellent expert witness who was a child psychologist
were crucial in stealing the jury away from the prosecution. An exceedingly
talented attorney from Portland rounded out the winning team. Now,
Andrews had three-authority figures representing him who were able
to overshadow the prosecutor and the stateís expert witness. The
trial reduced Steve Andrews to poverty and debt, but gave him his
freedom. By not sending an innocent man to prison, the taxpayers were
saved at least $180,000.

There are a lot of jurors who become
teachers (Milgramís experiment) who sit on juries willing to please
authority figures, few have any compulsions against inflicting pain
and suffering on the defendant (learner). If you donít have a good
investigator, attorney, and an expert witness you could easily be
part of the 98 percent (or whatever the conviction rate is for your
city/county) that are convicted and sent away for a long stay.

John Taft former president of Josephine
County, OR. Taxpayers Association is presently an investigative reporter
for the US-Oregon Observer and NewsWithViews.com. He has had many years
of broadcasting, news writing and reporting experience. He also has written
a popular conservative newsletter for a taxpayers organization to inform
the public on taxing issues. John can be reached at joconewsline@hotmail.comJohn's Web site: www.Strobezone.homestead.com

"The law in question may be
a bad one. But, it is still being enforced. A juror who admits to disagreeing
with the law will no longer sit on the jury. ...

The juror can no longer vote his
conscience...We now have the so-called "12 pancake (stacked) jury" who
are psychologically under the spell of an authority figure (Judge) whom
the jurors subconsciously wish to please."